Vibrational spectroscopic studies of vinyltriethoxysilane sol-gel and its coating

Infrared and Raman spectra of vinyltriethoxysilane (VTES), the VTES sol-gel, and the sol-gel coated aluminum have been collected. The assignments of the vibrational modes for the silane, the sol-gel, and the sol-gel films have been made based on the group frequencies and the spectral variation collected at different physical and chemical states of the sol-gel samples. Applying the sol-gels onto the metal grids allowed the drying and the high temperature treatment of the samples for the collection of infrared transmission spectra. From the variation of the sol-gel and the sol-gel coated aluminum IR spectra with temperature, it was noticed that the samples partially decomposed when the temperature was higher than 100 degrees C. Electrochemical experiments have demonstrated that the anticorrosion property of the coated aluminum has significantly increased. The water and the hexadecane contact angle measurements showed that the surface modified metal had a much higher hydrophobic property than the untreated metal.